Saturday, February 12, 2011

( the entrance of Page Auditorium at Duke University by night--photo February 11, 2011)

The Grateful Dead were one of the first bands to define the modern rock touring circuit beyond the confines of California. Groups like the Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Canned Heat and Iron Butterfly crisscrossed America with their amplifiers and light shows, carving out a path for future rock and rollers in old dance halls, Municipal Auditoriums and College gymnasiums. Although many of the venues they played became bigger and newer as time marched forward, groups like the Dead helped create those rock markets one concert at a time.

As the Dead got larger in the 1970s and expanded their reach, a peculiar pattern emerged. Jerry Garcia started to tour with his own aggregations, and to a large extent Garcia climbed the same ladder the Dead had built, playing smaller places in familiar territory. As Garcia became an attraction in his own right, the venues got larger and the territory got wider. However, Jerry Garcia's early National tours are surprisingly thinly documented, just as the early days of the Dead were. Often tapes circulate, but little is known about the actual concerts and the circumstances surrounding them. One such "lost" show was the Jerry Garcia Band appearance at tiny Page Auditorium at Duke University, in Durham, North Carolina on April 4, 1976. Although tapes of both the early and late shows have endured, almost nothing else seems to be known about this evening. This post will look at the Page Auditorium show as an indicator of how the Garcia Band was replicating the Grateful Dead's touring strategy of the early 70s, and will speculate on just how much the Duke show was at the outer frontiers in long ago 1976 (update: amazingly, a Commenter has discovered that this show was videotaped by the student-run TV station, and remains archived in the Duke library. I wonder if the video has been seen since it was shot?)

Duke University and Durham, North Carolina
Washington Duke and his family became staggeringly wealthy through the ownership of American Tobacco. The operation was centered in Durham, NC, a city invented in the 1850s as an intersection point for several railroads. With American Tobacco as the centerpiece, Durham was an important financial and industrial city in the late 19th and early 20th century. The Duke family invested heavily in textiles to make cotton bags for their tobacco, and in turn invested in electric power to drive the mills (Duke Energy is a direct corporate descendant), and they had a wide corporate reach in other industries as well.

Washington Duke had encouraged Trinity University to relocate from rural Randolph County to Durham in 1892. In 1924, his son endowed a substantial amount of money to the school, and the institution changed its name to Duke University. Thus Durham, American Tobacco and Duke University were always intimately connected. However, various factors, including anti-trust laws and the Depression caused American Tobacco and Durham to decline in importance from the 1930s onward. Durham entered a long, slow decline. While Duke University still had considerable resources, the school was far out of the mainstream for many years.

In the 21st century, Durham is one corner of the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill "Triangle," and a linchpin of Research Triangle Park, the Silicon Valley of the New South. Durham promotes itself as "The City Of Medicine," downtown Durham is new and exciting and the region is a desirable destination for relocating Northerners who like organic food. Duke University is a high profile school, with so many students from the Northeast that t-shirts around town say "Duke: The University of Southern New Jersey at Durham" and everyone gets the joke. Duke's aged basketball pavilion, Cameron Indoor Stadium, is a national shrine to the fabled Duke-UNC basketball rivalry, which in itself is a National event.

Grateful Dead Touring History 1968-74
The Grateful Dead were a commercial entity as well as an artistic one, even if their initial business model was closer to an 18th century pirate ship than a 20th century entertainer. Nonetheless, since the band made more money touring than recording in the early days, they had to find ways to tour profitably. The group's basic strategy was to perform in places where they were already popular while also taking the time to play smaller and financially riskier shows in places where they were less known, in order to create an audience.The Dead's initial strongholds were the West Coast and major Northeastern cities. Since their equipment mostly traveled by truck, however, the band tended to expand their territory across the county in order to effectively pay for their travel. This in turn created new markets for the band.

The Dead connected the two coasts by traveling along Highway 80, from Utah to Chicago and from Chicago to New York. While they played a fair share of cities not on Highway 80 itself, such as Denver, those cities were located in such a place that they could still follow the path to and from Chicago and New York fairly easily. In so doing, the Dead were replicating the route of the Transcontinental Railroad, whose principal arteries were the Southern Pacific route (from San Francisco to Utah), the Union Pacific (Utah to Chicago) and the New York Central (from Chicago to New York). The pattern of following the railroad is not at all a coincidence, but this Braudelian analysis is the subject of a different line of research. The Dead's only other transcontinental route was in the Southwest, from Los Angeles to Arizona and Texas, and then to New Orleans and Florida. However, this route (mostly following a different Southern Pacific route from Menlo Park to New Orleans) terminated in the Gulf of Mexico, forcing the band to fly North or return home.

As the Dead expanded their footholds in the early 1970s, they got farther and farther from Highway 80, but they were still financially tied to their most profitable touring destinations in major Northeastern cities. By the early 1970s, the Dead had started to work their way down I-95 and I-64, playing shows in Washington, DC, Williamsburg, VA and even once in Roanoke, VA (July 27 '74). By the 1980s, the state of Virginia was usually an essential tour stop for the Dead, but the band was still carving out the territory by playing small places in the early 1970s.

By and large, however, the Dead's 70s fanbase was in not in the South. Whether or not the South of the 60s would have been friendly to the Dead--probably not--is a moot point, since the Dead rarely got near enough to make an attempt. The Dead did play a rock festival at the Duke University football stadium (Wallace Wade) with the Beach Boys on April 24, 1971, but they were clearly flown in for that, without their sound system in tow, so it was not part of any plan.

The one real Grateful Dead outpost in the South was the city of Atlanta. The Dead had flown there to play a free concert in Atlanta on July 6, 1969, and this gesture seems not to have been forgotten in Atlanta. Atlanta was probably one of the most productive instances of the Dead's willingness to play for free creating a paying audience. The Dead regularly played Atlanta throughout their entire career, in relatively large places. However, as I have pointed out numerous times, playing a show in a distant place often requires a show in between. As a result, a major show in Atlanta at the Omni, on December 12, 1973, presaged two shows in North Carolina, at Cameron Indoor Stadium at Duke on December 8 and at Charlotte Coliseum on December 10. Since the prior show was in Cleveland in December 6, a brief glance at a map shows that North Carolina shows were prudent stops even if they didn't make financial sense. The Dead would return to North Carolina in 1976 (Sep 23 at Cameron Indoor) and steadily built the territory thereafter, expanding their Southeastern audience to the state.

When Garcia started to tour outside of California with his own bands, he followed the pattern established by the Dead. Most of the earliest shows in 1973 and 1974 were in the Northeast, in places like New York City. When the Dead went on hiatus and the touring got more serious, Garcia and Saunders generally stuck near to Highway 80. The one really striking exception to this was a three night stand at the Great Southeast Music Hall in Atlanta, where the Legion Of Mary played three nights (two shows each) from April 15-17, 1975. Given that the group clearly flew to the shows, they must have been profitable indeed.

By early 1976, Garcia had consciously commercialized his touring, as he needed the cash flow. His group was now named after himself, and he had a new album to promote (Reflections). While his Spring 1976 tour bounced around the Country, Garcia generally seemed to be sticking to places where a big following had been established. Garcia himself was a true rock star, but he had no real following as a solo performer, and he was hardly assured of sellouts in all but the most familiar places. Thus it is not surprising that the last show on the April '76 leg of the tour was April 5 at the Fox Theater in Atlanta. There's every reason to think the Atlanta show was a relatively lucrative booking.

Since the JGB were playing Saturday, April 3 in Washington, DC, touring economics would recommend a show, any show, on Sunday April 4, at a place between DC and Atlanta. Durham is the approximate midway point between the two cities, conveniently located on I-85, just three hours South of Richmond. Which is how, I am fairly certain, the Jerry Garcia Band came to be playing two shows in sleepy Durham, NC on a Sunday night, in a tiny college auditorium. Not because there was a big audience, or any distinct desire to play there, but the band needed a gig and Duke University was conveniently located. Durham was nowhere then, with tobacco long declined, no minor league baseball team (the new Durham Bulls would not move there until 1980) and--whatever anyone tells you--no meaningful rivalry with the University of North Carolina basketball team (don't get me started--Dick Vitale and ESPN largely invented the rivalry in the early '80s).

( a view of the Page Auditorium stage from the lower balcony, stage right, February 11, 2011. The equipment was set up for the Wayne Shorter Quartet [who were epic, by the way, but that is for a different blog])

April 4, 1976 Page Auditorium, Duke University, Durham, NC: Jerry Garcia Band
All Page Auditorium shows are campus sponsored, so students would have gotten in very cheaply. In fact, the show may have been tied to some campus event. Duke University has never lacked for funds, so whatever the math of the attendance (1232 seats turned over twice), Garcia's fee may have been supplemented by University funds. Most of the people in attendance were probably Duke students, happy enough to see a rock star, but probably happy enough to have something to do on a Sunday night, and I doubt most of them were any kind of Deadhead (at least beforehand). Probably a few outsiders got in, since we do have a tape, but I suspect the fact that there are no known press reports or advertisements suggests that the Garcia Band show was a Duke event, not really directed at the community.

A bunch of Duke students probably had a great time on April 4, 1976, and a bunch of other ones probably had at least a memorable one (not counting those with no memories at all). However, they all graduated (I hope), and Duke students rarely stick around Durham, certainly not in those days. Thus somewhere out there in America are some Duke students with warm, if fuzzy memories of seeing the Jerry Garcia Band in a tiny campus auditorium. However, they aren't around Durham anymore, so there is no local memory of the show, and indeed no National memory either. Durham is a different place now, more than willing to celebrate the music of Jerry Garcia, not realizing he already passed through, one Sunday night long ago.

Holy moly--a pro shot, 3-reel video of the JGB in Durham in 1976? Out of sight of the Garcia vault or anything else since then? Has anyone even seen it since then? I wonder if a college professor with ILL privileges could request it?

Maybe when Duke plays Andrew Luck and Stanford next year (Sep 10 at Wallace Wade), Duke could just re-show the video at Page Auditorium.

I doubt such an item could be had through ILL. Perhaps someone relatively local to Duke can check it out? ;-) Seriously, arrangement needs to be made for those tapes to be digitized. Historically precious!

It is pretty hilarious that a JGB video has been lurking in a university library for the last 30 years without anybody noticing.

Apparently the recording was made by Duke's student-run TV station "Cable 13". (So it could even have been broadcast after the show?)

Surprisingly, it's almost the only rock performance in the collection, as the station mostly devoted itself to university events like sports, pig roasts, and beer-chugging contests...

BUT - we don't know what condition the reels are in, as apparently even the librarians haven't viewed them. The library site warns, "This collection is unprocessed: materials may not have been ordered and described beyond their original condition."

Plus, it sounds VERY difficult even for a Duke student/professor to access these reels:

"Access Restrictions - Patrons must sign the Acknowledgement of Legal Responsibility and Privacy Rights form before using this collection.In off-site storage; 24 hours advance notice is required for use.Use of this collection requires the creation of viewing copies from videotapes. However, University Archives does not have the equipment or the resources to make copies from U-Matic videocassettes or half-inch open reel video. To arrange for the creation of use copies from these formats, please contact University Archives staff. Although these recordings are now stored in a stable environment, their condition and playback quality is unknown."

So basically, although the Duke library has this show catalogued, they don't know what condition it's in, and they can't even make a viewing copy for you. Catch-22!

Yes, I noted some of these restrictions. I'm wondering if they have a way of letting someone--me--watch it in the library somewhere.

I should point out that I read through the whole listing of the archive, and there are some good rock things: Roger McGuinn and Thunderbyrd, Pure Prairie League and Peter Holsapple and The H-Bombs. The Holsapple thing is actually quite obscure, and I suspect his fans don't know it exists either, but I'm not going to worry about that for now.

Does anyone know about surviving JGB video? Are there any complete pro-shot shows from the 70s?

The reels are listed as 7-inch, 1/2-inch (marked "EIAJ-Standard").From wikipedia: "The EIAJ-1 standard paved the way for non-professional video recording technology to become more affordable and widespread, with many businesses, schools, [etc] adopting the format in the early 1970s. Some of the first public access television stations that went on the air in that same era also used EIAJ-1 extensively, due to its portability, low cost, and versatility.The format offered black & white (and later colour) video recording and playback on 1/2" tape on a 7"-diameter open reel."A 7-inch reel would record 60 minutes.

Alas, what was great in the '70s is now an archaeologic relic. An archival-video remastering site warns of the EIAJ-1 format - "Existing machine longevity: Near extinct.Videotape longevity: Low."

And another site warns: "Unless time-base corrected and the sync replaced with re-generated sync...it cannot be broadcast or easily duplicated... There remains only a handful of working machines left that can make the transfer." (But also, more optimistically: "The format is very robust... About 99% of the EIAJ tapes we receive are able to be recovered if properly recorded to begin with. Few if any modern digital formats will survive the decades as the EIAJ format has done.")

These recordings are in storage at a university with no way to play or convert the reels. To repeat the above quote: "Use of this collection requires the creation of viewing copies from videotapes. However, University Archives does not have the equipment or the resources to make copies from...half-inch open reel video."

Which is probably why this video has been out of sight for so long...

I would guess that for a hefty fee, though, an outside archival-video-transfer/conversion site can be utilized. This would probably be several hundred dollars, at least. And then you could still face copyright issues - perhaps the library may feel it necessary to contact the Garcia family for "permission" to make even a library viewing copy - any other copies would be out of the question.

I believe the earliest JGB show video is from the 3/1/80 Capitol Theater first set. (There are also videos of Grateful Dead shows from the Capitol - 4/27/77 and 11/24/78.)

It's well-known, but worth mentioning, that there is also a video of the Grateful Dead's Duke University show from 4/12/78. As deadlists describes: "The show was filmed by the university with three cameras (two between the front row and the stage, and one at the soundboard). The circulating segment is an edit from the three camera shots. There is no trace of the remaining portion of the show nor each of the three original reels. The films have reportedly long since disappeared from the Duke University archives. The video quality is a little rough but historic nonetheless, as it is a rare document that has Garcia windmilling a la Pete Townsend." (And viewers report, with shock, that Garcia even jumps up and down at the end of US Blues.)Much of the show is on youtube; this is one place to start - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbfjnUlhVc4

Which makes me wonder...did the student film-crew also film the Dead's 9/23/76 show there? Or the 4/2/82 show? Probably not, since something would've surfaced by now...

Corry, I think it is worth a try. I have found University Archives to be incredibly helpful wherever I have been - they collect this stuff and typically they love it when people are interested in it.

So I'd say first thing is to contact the archives, tell them what's up, fill out paperwork, go in and see what things look like. Start talking to them about how copies might be made. I read this slightly more optimistically than LIA - I think they actually require a copy to be made for the patron, but just lack the equipment and such. The real challenge, it sounds like, is going to be to get the tape transferred (i.e., to find the right equipment, expertise, etc.). I wonder if there's not a TV/theater/production department at Duke that might have some gear and some expertise.

Barring that, if there's interest over there the Duke Libraries might be able to fund a project to have this all done professionally. I'd guess it'd be at least a few or several thousand dollars, but by golly it's important stuff!

There is a fair amount of much earlier GD video out and about. I don't keep track of it, but as far back as '70, '71, '72 there is video.

The guy who could really get the video side of Garcia together is TJS contributor slip, who has also started commenting at JGMF and maybe here. Slip, we need lists of Jerry video!

Random, but important to me: I actually have my doubts about the OAITW Camp Springs sets on labor day 1973. I haven't had time to get back to it. But Fred Bartenstein, who was involved with the production of the show, does not remember OAITW being there and says he probably would if indeed they had. Weighed against an ex ante advertisement and no other evidence in favor, I think this militates against the performance having happened. There were discussions which were advanced enough that ads were placed in Muleskinner News. But it never happened, is my current best guest.

There's still much work to do on OAITW and the '73 bluegrass festival season. So little time! ...

I've been assuming that from the lack of evidence of this video, it hasn't been transferred or copied in all these years. Could be wrong...maybe the library already HAS a viewing copy that's never been publicly mentioned, and my speculations are baseless.

But it's telling that the GD Duke '78 video did get out (apparently from a Cable 13 edit), while this show remained buried.These tapes were donated to the library in 1981, it seems, so it's strange that no Cable 13 deadheads copied or circulated this video in the years before then.

My guess is, that any students who did discover these reels in the library recently & wanted to see them have been deterred, either by the cost or the necessary permissions. (If it was as easy as just finding the right video equipment on the campus, this would have been done years ago!)

It's understandable that your average Duke U Garcia fan might not want to pay "several thousand" just to get to watch this show in the library - I don't think the library would fund that on their own. (Maybe as part of a collection-wide restoration project? I'd imagine the library board has to approve such use of funds.)

But I'm sure where there's a will (and a wallet), there's a way. What worries me more is this library notice for the collection:"All other copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law."That could be a hangup. But if Corry, as it seems, is in the area, we'll find out soon enough...

Well, I called the Duke Library Archives, and they couldn't have been nicer and more helpful. Unfortunately, my visions of cruising over to the Library to spend an afternoon watching Jerry lay it down (in grainy black and white) were quickly dashed. With much regret, the archivist informed me that

"I looked into the status of the Jerry Garcia videotape in our Archives. Reformatting was researched in 2006. At that time we were quoted $517.00 to reformat, and there was no guarantee it would even work. Another tape of that type from the same period was digitized and yielded no usable material. The price now would be at least that much, if not more, and there still would be no guarantee, but rather a high likelihood of failure. If you still want to consider it, let me know. I’m sorry not to be able to give you better news."

Then, no doubt feeling my pain, I was left with a sliver of hope

"This tape is high on the reformatting priority list, but there’s no telling when it will be digitized. If we do digitize it successfully, this will be reflected in the catalog, so you may want to check periodically for updates and news releases. Again, my regrets."

In the hopes of a miracle, higher powers were contacted, and we can only cross our fingers. At least I am confident that the Duke Library knows what they have and will make every effort to preserve the tape if they can fund the transfer.

Thanks again to Robert (upthread) who stumbled across this. If there's any movement on this front I will let everyone know.

To return briefly to the original subject of the post, the Grateful Dead did play Cameron Indoor Stadium (Duke's basketball arena) in September '76. It was not unheard of in San Francisco for a Jerry Garcia ensemble to check out a venue before the Dead played there (Harding Theater in '71, the Orpheum in '76, etc).

The JGB playing Page isn't an exact parallel, but it did give a whiff that Duke could deal with the Grateful Dead, so it may not be irrelevant. I would note also that the Duke basketball team was pretty bad until after the '76 shows. I'm just saying...without the Dead, maybe Mike Gminski and Jim Spanarkel would never have come...

Whoops, I forgot about the 12/6/73 show at Duke (I guess I should re-read my own posts!). So I have reversed the polarity, since it was probably because the Dead had played Duke in '73 that they had a relationship to leverage in '76.

The 4/24/71 show was a rock festival booked by Bill Graham's Millard Agency, and the Dead would have done little more than fly in and play. The 12/6/73 would have been booked by Sam Cutler's agency (I think called Out Of Town Tours), so there would have been a more direct connection.

The Dead played Duke in '78 as well as '76, so it seems like they had a real connection with a Duke-connected promoter. My point about Mike Gminski still stands, however.

Ugh this post just got deleted so my zeal for starting over has been diminished but here goes.

I am an alumnus but didn't arrive until January 1978. Duke was its own talent buyer in the 80's, with an organization called Major Attractions (or minor distractions depending on your point of view). One of its head guys was Fred Goldring, who's now an entertainment lawyer in LA. So Duke sought out and bought this show.

Second, far from being a sleepy backwater in 1976, Duke was home to many rabid Deadheads in that era and my friends and I camped out for three days for second row seats for the April 78 show. The Dead also had many fans in the south; The Dead started several Spring tours in NC (Charlotte, Greensboro and Charlotte in 1979, 80 and 81 if memory serves) and of course came back to Duke in 1982 as noted (attended and recorded that was well but only audio). Hampton Coliseum, VPI and William and Mary also on those tour itineraries.

Duke Cable 13 recorded many shows, good and bad (Kenny Loggins comes to mind), not just sporting events and keggers. There was an issue with the Dead for the shows to be shown on local cable and an issue with them coming back to the school, and student tastes changed at the height of the disco erea. Sadly, my own nearly original copies of the legendary 1978 show ware lost (lent and never returned!) but if someone is serious about getting the Page show they should price it, see if the University will allow a donated transfer, then use Kickstarter to raise the money to pay for it for the public good. Not telling if the University will then allow it to be shown, but perhaps the estate would. Good luck!

heshelman, thanks for the on-the-scene perspective. It certainly seems that the Dead's efforts to keep playing North Carolina paid off with a loyal fan base.

I have a feeling that the preserved archives of Cable 13 are somewhat random. There were only 5 rock shows (none Kenny Loggins) spread out over six years. Its also interesting to hear that the Dead did not approve of the broadcast of their Cameron shows, and those are not in the Archive. That leads me to think that the Garcia show was actually broadcast, however few may have been watching it.

Thanks, heshelman - good to hear from someone 'in the know'!I'd guess there's more old Cable 13 stuff surviving than is in that limited library collection. But it often happens when recovering old TV programs, just a few were randomly preserved through the ravages of time, while the bulk gets lost... (Well, the same's true of movies & radio shows in general, though most people don't look back that far.)

Not surprised to hear that there was "an issue with the Dead coming back to the school", given how school authorities generally viewed the Dead... But it did surprise me that the 4/12/78 show was filmed at all, since the Dead seem to have had a no-filming policy in general. They must have been asked all the time, wouldn't you think? (The Capitol Theatre vids seem to be the exception from that period, and those were done by the theater.)Their FM broadcast policy was also very selective - some tours (like fall '71 or June '76) they'd let each city get a broadcast; but most the time, radio listeners were out of luck.

Based on what we have learned in the last two weeks, I think that what happened at Duke on 4/12/78 was that the Cameron show was videotaped by the Channel 13 staff as part of the live video feed, but it was not broadcast on the station. Bill Graham had been using B&W video at Winterland since about 1975, so the technology was not unknown.

I have to think (hope) that the JGB 76 show was video'd and broadcast, and thus preserved, whereas the Dead videos were part of the live performance.

FM broadcasts had a different math. The record company had to purchase all the advertising for the radio station for the evening. In Fall '71 Warners was pushing the Dead hard, and CBS was pushing the Riders, so the whole show was broadcast. In 1976, GD Records was trying to generate interest, and bought out the ad time on radio stations to create the broadcasts.

However, in 1972-74 there wasn't any record company cash to buy broadcast time, so there were few FM broadcasts (NYE excepted).

Re: FM broadcasts, I hadn't known about ad time. I assume the early San Francisco FM broadcasts & the various New Year's shows were exempt from that policy?

I tried putting together a list of all the Dead's early FM broadcasts a while ago - which was actually quite tricky, since many shows were broadcast from collectors' tapes years later: http://www.archive.org/post/264324/dead-fm-broadcasts

Re: Bill Graham's Winterland videos, here's an example from 12/31/77 Winterland: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTttsdP5mJM Have to wonder how many more of Graham's videos survive...

With regard to GD radio broadcasts, all 70s and 80s broadcasts on commercial stations had someone--usually the record company--subsidizing the lost ad time. When the Dead broadcast a New Years Eve show on KSAN in the mid-70s, some entity was paying several thousand dollars to make up for the lost out time. There usually weren't commercials and there wasn't a named "sponsor", but Warner Brothers or someone paid.

When the Dead had a big run of FM broadcasts in the Fall of 71, it was because Warners paid a radio station in each city for the lost ad time (Columbia would have done the same for the Riders). In Summer '76 the Dead did the same thing, subsidizing the ad time on stations for the broadcasts. New Years Eve in San Francisco was no exception. New Years '77 was not broadcast on KSAN because Arista wasn't going to pay for it (I think Santana or someone was on the air that night).

In some cases, Warners may have made some sort of deal--like agreeing to buy a certain number of ads in the next 60 days in return for an evening's GD broadcast--but money still changed hands with commercial stations. The college and non-profit stations had different arrangements and motives.

I do know about KZSU and KALX broadcasts, but the circumstances weren't always identical. By the 1980s, the college stations were broadcasting as much for crowd control at the Greek and Frost as anything else, although they were often part of fundraisers.

KPFA is yet another circumstance, but they too are non-profit, so the 69 Avalon broadcast was financed some other way. KMPX on 2/14/68 was a commercial station, but I don't know the economics underlying it. I can't believe, however, that there wasn't at least an implied financial transaction when the station gave up much of the night to broadcasting. Was 2/14/68 actually broadcast over the air as it happened? I'm not convinced of that yet.

This is an interesting topic, and if you had a post on it (hint!) I would have a lot of comments.

Would the 'closing of Fillmore West' radio shows on 7/2/71 have been paid for by Bill Graham? I also wonder about 10/4/70 as that was a multi-FM&TV-station broadcast of multiple bands on different labels...

Both McNally & Jackson say that 2/14/68 was broadcast live on both KMPX and KPFA (calling it "the first-ever live FM stereo broadcast"). Deadlists says the broadcast was just the second set & Country Joe's set, and notes the KMPX DJ talking at the end of the radio broadcast. The occasion for the broadcast was apparently the "official" opening of the Carousel.

A post on Dead FM broadcasts would not be that interesting for me, but I'll try to whip up something... Sometimes it's hard to tell just *when* a show was actually broadcast... Like, 11/19/66 is on a recent KSAN compilation claiming it was "partially broadcast", but I can't verify that. 5/6/70 was recorded by the MIT radio station but I don't know if it was broadcast. Then there's the 'alternate history' of intrepid DJs independently broadcasting shows on their own like 10/12/68, 5/2/70, 5/15/70 etc...this apparently started in 1971 as the first SBDs started getting out. That's a whole separate stream of "Dead on the radio" that some other historian might address someday...

I am nearly certain that this is a video of the 12/8/73 GD @ Cameron Indoor Stadium. I know that a film was made, not by Duke but independently, that has not circulated. A friend of mine who still lives in Durham knew the filmmakers and saw some of it long ago. Perhaps it was donated to the Duke Library?

Having been a student at UNC '72-'82 I was fortunate enough to attend 12/8/73, 4/4/76, 9/23/76, 4/12/78, and 4/2/82.

Bob, that's a very interesting piece of information. I had seen that "Another Saturday Night" listed, and wondered what it was. Was the film "pro shot" or amateur, do you have any idea?

Maybe now that Arizona took down Duke, the University alumni can focus on their archives. Do you recall if the JGB 4-4-76 shows were student events, or if they were publicly advertised? Did they sell out?

Rich how ya doing buddy. Michael O here. do you have a pdf of your review? i'd love to read it. i was at 9/23/76 and 4/12/78 but never knew JG played Page that April. or if I knew then i've forgotten now. my email is michaelofoghludha@gmail.com

"Another Sat Night" in the Duke Archive is not the film made of 12/8/73. That film, which is titled "One More Sat Night", is still in the possession of the original owner. It consists of only BEW, Big River, and China->Rider. The owner might put it out soon.

My recollection is that the Page shows sold out with little, if any, advertisement. I bought my ticket at the UNC Student Union and only went to the late show as the early was already sold out. The crowd seemed to be almost entirely Duke Students.

It broke a long drought for me. The last time I'd seen Jerry play was on 8/6/74.

Wow, a new Dead film from '73 surfaces and vanishes, almost in the same breath. I'd like to know more about what Dead reps snatched the film, when they did it, and what legal reasons they offered. A four-song video would not seem to be much of a bootleg threat! But I recall the Dead were opposed to videos long after relenting to audio-tapers...

I was at both Page auditorium shows. They were my first experience with seeing Garcia live and made me a life long fan. At first only one show was put on but they announced a second one at the last minute. Also was at Cameron '78 and we all had copies of the tape as soon as it came out.. We all wore ours out but the master was very well preserved. Would like to help retrieve the film if you crowdsource it please post. Steve C.

Steve, thanks for the detail about the second show. It makes a lot of sense, making sure the first show sold out before adding the late one.

As to the video, some people (including Dr Bob, who Commented above) apparently actually paid to get the JGB Ap4 4 76 video converted, some time in the early 2000s, and it was unrecoverable. The format was not at all standard, apparently, and the technical issues weren't resolvable.

If you look through the Duke archives, you can see all sorts of interesting video tapes (Poco, etc) but I think none can be recaptured.